Through our “cultural memory,” we have come to view an encyclopedia as a relatively STATIC reference. True, the Britannica publishers have long issued their BOOK OF THE YEAR “ADDENDA;” but we tend to consult an encyclopedia for things that DON’T CHANGE, rather than for “keeping up with the latest.” This is a problematic premise, since just about any subject area is ALWAYS changing due to advance scholarship. This can occur on the micro level (a cantata attributed to Bach later found to have been composed by Telemann) or the macro level (as in scientific theories that assign to information the same fundamental priority assigned to matter and energy). When the macro level involves a major shift in world-view (akin to Kuhn’s paradigm shift), that would entail more than “surface-level” emendations in an encyclopedia, while is why there have been essays and books about “the encyclopedia” for at least the last fifty years. Perhaps we are now comfortable enough with the fluidity of such world-views that we can accept the limited value of such static reference sources.

If we can accept fluidity, then we should also be able to accept volatility. At the very least we can use the Internet to make sure that we never have to be informed by a single source (at least when the information is critical to some aspect of our lives). CAVEAT LECTOR has been a recurring theme on my own blog:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/03/predatory-practices-on-internet.html

There is a much greater risk in being a “casual reader” than there used to be; but we are well-equipped to deal with that risk. The good news is that on Wikipedia a reader can consult the discussion tab to get some sense as to how volatile the content is and adopt appropriate reading habits accordingly.

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